The Major League Baseball amateur draft is just days away, and with the transaction freeze because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a chance it will be general manager Ben Cherington's only chance to add impact talent into the farm system. If nothing else, June 10-11 will be a chance for him to differentiate himself from the previous GM, Neal Huntington.
Huntington tried to build the Pirates through the draft, and while they did find some All-Stars and solid contributors, his history is very mixed. He had some unquestionably good drafts, but there were almost as many bad ones.
If you don't know where I'm going with this, read the headline again.
Huntington was the Pirates' GM for a dozen drafts, but those first two were a product of a different era where teams did not have caps on draft spending. 2010 and 2011 didn't have a cap either, but it was clear one was on the horizon and it influenced how teams approached those years. Let's take a look at those years, too. Besides, "Ranking the Pirates' last eight drafts" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
With that out of the way, here is where the Pirates' last 10 drafts rank, from worst to best:
10. 2012
First round pick: RHP Mark Appel (did not sign); Best pick: C Jacob Stallings, seventh round.
I have already written about the 2012 draft once, so I will keep this short.
Appel was expected to be the first overall pick in the draft, but fell to the Pirates at No. 8. The club drafted but failed to sign him, and it more or less scared them away from college pitchers for years to come.
The Pirates knew they had to put a lot of eggs in the Appel basket, so they selected multiple players who would sign very cheap. Fortunately for them, one of them really worked out: Stallings. He appeared to be just an organizational depth catcher, but he is now lined up as the starting catcher now because of his elite defense and ability to manage the pitching staff. A lot of that work on defense was done with bullpen catcher Jordan Comadena, who helped develop a program for pitch framing. Every catcher in spring training did that this year, so those two are actively making the who team better.
They also drafted Adrian Sampson in the fifth round. He did not accomplish much in the majors, but he was the player the Pirates sent to Seattle in 2015 for J.A. Happ.
But besides those two, the Pirates got little value from this draft. Max Moroff and Josh Smith are the only other two players who signed out of the draft who reached the majors, and both are just replacement level guys. I specify "signed" because they did draft Walker Buehler in the 14th round and had money to spend, but he ultimately went to college. One last kick in the ribs from a doomed draft.
9. 2018
First round picks: OF Travis Swaggerty, RHP Gunnar Hoglund (did not sign); Best pick: Swaggerty, first round.
Perhaps it is too soon to judge this draft so harshly, especially since nobody has come close to reaching the majors yet. However, it has been just two years since this draft, and only a few picks are still considered prospects.
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